It never ceases to amaze me at how quickly time passes. Our second youngest grandson will be eight years old this week. Wow. It seems like yesterday that Audrey and the kids came back to Texas from Virginia. Jacob wasn't quite two years old. He was the youngest at the time. He has a nine month old baby brother now and is a great big brother.

Jacob will get to spend a day with us later in the week and we'll all have dinner at the farm to celebrate. He asked his grandad when he can go hunting. That kid is all boy! I guess we'll have to bring him out here and let him go for a walk along the creek with Brad. I doubt there will be any hunting, but he can look for fossils in the creek bed.

Our grand-kids don't want much for their birthdays, mostly they want to spend time with Brad and me and to go out to eat for lunch. We give them money in their birthday cards and every one of them saves it up 'for later' whenever that is. When the eldest grand-daughter was about ten it was discovered that she had over $400 in cash stashed in her room. She never spent any of her birthday money. Her mom put it in the bank for her. More than once when we would visit them in Virginia before they moved back here we would take them shopping and they wouldn't find anything that they wanted to spend their money on. My brother and I were the opposite of these kids when we were their ages. Money? Cool! Let's go to the toy store and buy some more models to put together and paint.

These kids are home-schooled and it shows. They have none of the hang-ups that we public school kids did. Their imaginations are constantly in overdrive and they are outgoing and gregarious and extremely mature for their ages. And smart! These kids aren't just smart, they are scary smart. They blow me away. They are loyal and close-knit but at the same time the two older girls never lose a chance to let the boys know they are 'idiots' when they do something stupid. Typical sister/brother stuff.

They make our lives richer and make life worth living. God has blessed us in many ways, the best of which is our lovely, intelligent daughter and her children. We are so glad that she found a man worthy of her and is happier than she's ever been. David is an added blessing to this family. The Blankenship family has become the Blankenship-Graves family. Life is good.

Even though the time passes quickly I look forward to what the future has to offer. It just keeps getting better all the time.